2013
Court Listens To Trademark Plaintiff’s Confused Cries from Yelp
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsEvan Brown’s Internet Cases blog points us to an interesting, if potentially problematic, rulingfrom central Florida in a trademark dispute. In ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction, the court considered evidence of customer confusion—one element of proving a trademark infringement claim—based on postings by users of the ratings website, Yelp. The court noted that not only...
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POTUS on Patent Trolls
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsIn the aftermath of his State of the Union address this week, President Obama weighed in on the state of the patent system and patent reform. As reported by Reuters, Obama directly addressed the proliferation of patent assertion entities a/k/a non–practicing entities a/k/a patent trolls in recent comments as part of an online Q&A. In discussing the challenge...
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First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All The Legal Research Services…
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsOn the lighter side—and at the risk of delving a bit too close to inside jokes for IP lawyers—we found amusing the following press release from Thomson Reuters, regarding its flagship online legal research service, Westlaw. For those of you who have dabbled in the law (or set foot onto a law school campus), you will already...
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Betting the Bank
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsAs alert readers are no doubt already aware, the authors of this blog are keenly interested in the outcome of the Federal Circuit’s en banc consideration of the CLS Bank appeal, which squarely considers the patent eligibility of computer–implemented inventions. Just a short note that—as of last Friday—oral arguments have been heard in CLS Bank. Now all that is left is to wait, and to...
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Notes of News
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsThe weekly news round–up reveals the following of interest to our readers… First, Cisco’s “best–defense–is–a–good–offense” strategy of hitting patent troll Innovatio IP Ventures with federal racketeering charges, based on Innovatio’s campaign of writing letters to approximately 8,000 of Cisco’s wi–fi customers, suffered a setback yesterday. Judge Holderman found that Innovatio’s petitioning activity was constitutionally protected (ed.—however distasteful). Second, the ill–fated and...
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Silver Linings Transfer Playbook
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsThe Eastern District of Texas remains the number one patent venue in America. The old normal was that patent–owning plaintiffs would file a single lawsuit against many, many unrelated defendants in that court. Then the America Invents Act—prohibiting joinder of unrelated defendants in a single case based solely on the fact that they are all...
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Shopping Cart Upended
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsThe shopping cart—a staple of retail stores since at least the 1930s—was patented in 1940, as the “Folding Basket Carriage for Self–Service Stores,” a brainchild of Sylvan N. Goldman (Piggly Wiggly). No doubt, it was an innovative idea, and a welcome relief for weary housewives. Once the wheels of the shopping cart were set in motion,...
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“The Magic of the Internet”
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsWhile we all wait for the Federal Circuit to explain whether, when, and how abstract idea + computer = patent eligibility, courts continue to face motions to dismiss (or motions for summary judgment) on grounds that the computer– or Internet– related patent in question claims ineligible subject matter. In Cardpool, Inc. v. Plastic Jungle, Inc., pending in the Northern...
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Unparalleled Affirmance
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsThe tale of Parallel Networks, told here before, may have reached its terminus. In 2010, Parallel sued over 100 defendants in a variety of industries—from car–makers to clothing retailers—in several large suits in east Texas asserting the same patent to a “Method and Apparatus for Client–Server Communication Using a Limited Capability Client Over a Low–Speed Communications...
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Texas Two Step
David Swetnam-Burland / 0 CommentsFor anyone with a patent case in Texas, you may have a new dance partner this week. In accordance with General Orders 13–2 and 13–3, Chief Judge Davis modified the docket assignments for the Eastern District judges, which had the effect of transferring a number of patent cases between Judge Davis and Judge Schneider, and...
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